8:20 PM -- Palm Inc. 's former CEO and now head of HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ)'s Palm global business unit head Jon Rubinstein took the stage at the Web 2.0 Summit today to remind people Palm's operating system, webOS, will be back with a vengeance next year. (See Palm Unveils WebOS & Pre Phone.)

According to PC Mag, Battelle told the audience HP will be aggressively rolling out new webOS devices, including "a great tablet" and printers and other unnamed "ideas in the pipeline," in the next 12 to 18 months. (See OS Watch: Android's Fragmentation Makes Friends and Tablet Parade Looks to an Apple Takedown.)

HP acquired Palm to have its own play in mobility rather than rely on Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), but the competition is getting stiffer. Conversations usually hone in on Microsoft versus the big two, Android and Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), lumping in webOS with the others and making next year's still-vague product launches crucial to Palm's future. (See HP Completes Palm Buy and HP to Buy Palm for $1.2B.)

Speaking of struggling OSs, BlackBerry 's co-CEO Jim Basillie also had some interesting musings at the show. Amongst the most notable, considering today's carrier-driven mCommerce news, was that RIM would be foolish not to include near-field communication (NFC) chips in future handsets, and "RIM is no fool."

— Sarah Reedy, Senior Reporter, Light Reading Mobile